Hunter Kindergarten, Dolphin Class! - Chapter 131

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 131

“Not just a day, but a whole month?”

Park I-deun asked me with an expression that seemed to scream ‘That doesn’t match your character setting at all!’

“Yes, a month.”

To be exact, it was probably more than a month and a week, wasn’t it?

“Did, did you run away from Home? No, why?”

I slightly moved my lips at this question and eventually spat out an answer.

“Uh… Because I didn’t want to go Home? Ah, now that I think about it, it’s ambiguous to call it running away. There was no one waiting for me at Home anyway back then.”

My Parents passed away roughly not long after I entered Middle School…

“Both of my Parents passed away when I was young. I lived alone for almost all of my middle and High School Student years.”

Even now, whenever I close my eyes, the memories of that day come flooding back.

The scene I witnessed on the Bus going to my Parents’ Company, wearing a new School Uniform that didn’t feel right on my body.

I saw through the Bus window the moment when a High-rise Building with over 80 floors completely collapsed to the floor in an instant.

And… what happened after that.

Did I cry while calling my Parents?

Or no, I think I got off the Bus and ran toward the Building.

Why can’t I remember clearly…

“…Teacher?”

“Ah, yes. Um… To put it simply, my Parents died in an accident and I wandered around immaturely for a while.”

For some reason, after the accident, an Employee who claimed to be my Parents’ colleague came looking for me.

‘That person helped with the funeral and taught me how to manage insurance money and living expenses…’

They didn’t comfort a teenager who had suddenly lost their Parents, but thinking about it now, they seemed to have helped with quite detailed aspects.

To the extent of personally taking me, who was struggling with trauma, to a Psychiatrist.

-Do you feel like you’re trapped somewhere, or have trouble breathing?

-Excuse me, do you really think this has any meaning?

I don’t remember it well, but I do remember acting like a crazy dog and being rude to the Doctor.

Back then, I couldn’t see anything clearly…

Immersed in the loss of being left alone in the world, my rebellious stat seemed to have reached MAX.

‘Still, I got much better by consistently receiving treatment.’

Thinking about the old days made my neck stiff, so I cracked it slightly with an audible sound.

“It was so long ago that I don’t remember well, but back then my Parents’ company sent an Employee and gave us money… though I wondered what good any of that would do.”

However, surprisingly, the problem came after the trauma had faded.

The Employee who had returned as if their job was done completely disappeared one day, along with news articles about the company going bankrupt.

What would a 14-year-old Little Kid left alone like that do?

“I wandered around Outside.”

Various Insurance Money and Settlement Money. On top of that, there was even a large monthly Allowance from my Aunt in a Foreign Country.

money wasn’t a problem, but everything else was.

I rarely went to School, and wandered the Streets day and night.

And that’s when I wrote the longest chapter in my wandering life.

I didn’t go Home for over a month and a week.

“Mainly the Library, Jjimjilbang, Movie Theater, Airport… I think I went everywhere I could go.”

“…”

“Then I got caught by some weird guys a few times and ended up at the Police Station.”

“What?!”

“A scrawny Little Kid wandering around alone tends to get picked on easily.”

Every time that happened, I couldn’t hold back and fought, which made things even worse….

‘This is embarrassing, so let’s not talk about it.’

But even that changed after I learned that you needed to bring a guardian from the police station to get out, so whenever it looked like trouble was brewing, I just avoided it.

Every time I went to the police station, I couldn’t very well call my homeroom teacher whom I’d barely seen a few times.

“I barely went to school and almost had to repeat a grade…. It’s an embarrassing past….”

“Oh…. Wow.”

Back then, all kinds of emotions were raging inside me and it was hard to control them.

I wanted to die, then I wanted to live.

Sometimes I wanted to cry like crazy, but then I’d think what was the point of crying.

Looking back now, if I were to organize it into sentences, I guess I was grieving my parents’ death while also not wanting to believe the fact that I was left alone in the world….

Hmm, maybe it was worse because it overlapped with adolescence.

“But later I turned things around and wandered around more quietly. Haha.”

This is true.

After belatedly realizing that wandering around outside for over a month wasn’t something a human should do, I quietly slept at home. Of course, I still wandered around outside during the day.

Around my second and third year of middle school, I just watched video movies at the library every day.

‘Thanks to that, I watched pretty much all the classic movies back then, so I never missed an A+ in film-related liberal arts.’

“And I found my dream at that library.”

“Did you read some children’s books that deeply moved you?”

Even after my rather shocking past, Yu Jin-chae asked with a light laugh.

She was probably deliberately treating it casually.

I also laughed lightly and answered.

“No, that’s not it…. Through the video room window, I could always see the kindergarten across the street. When I got tired of watching videos, I’d stare blankly out the window…. And every time, I could see it.”

“Did the kids… look cute to you…?”

Kwon Hae-seong asked while reading the mood.

What kind of question is that?

“Not at all. Far from looking cute, I resented them. When it was time for dismissal, I could see the parents coming to pick up their children.”

That made me so jealous.

You guys have parents, but I don’t… thinking like that.

It was the peak of self-pity.

“Then one day, the library was closed. I had nothing to do, so I was just sitting on the library bench when people from the kindergarten across the street started waving at me.”

Some adults wearing aprons were calling me as a group, so I was surprised and approached them without thinking.

And then.

-Student, you come to the library every day, right? I’ve seen you coming and going, and you’re so pretty. You come to the library to study every time, right?

-Please eat this. It’s snacks, you like them, right? But… the weather is cold and you’re dressed too lightly.

-Oh my, you’ll catch a cold! Studying is important, but your health is important too.

-It seemed like you were looking at something through that library window over there, and it’s clearly visible from our classroom. I think we made eye contact a few times, haha.

The snack package they filled both my hands with.

The moment my hands were filled with snacks wrapped in packaging that looked bland enough for babies to eat.

I started crying.

-Hurry home and eat your meal, then eat the snacks. Make sure to brush your teeth before bed!

I even made a fool of myself by turning around and running away to hide, afraid they’d notice I was crying.

“After that, whenever I went to the library, we’d greet each other occasionally. Naturally, I grew to like it, and I guess I set my career path in that direction? Dreams don’t come from grand reasons like you’d think.”

“That’s…”

“…?”

“That’s impressive. Cl, clap…!!”

What the.

At Kwon Hae-seong’s bold first clap, everyone started clapping.

“Lee-yeol~ That’s amazing~”

“How admirable.”

Hey, Sa-gwa. You’re giving that back to me.

“So, did you study hard since High School? Teacher went to a prestigious University.”

Yu Jin-chae raised her eyebrows and asked slyly.

I laughed out loud at the teachers’ round of applause, then nodded and answered.

“Uh… That’s right? My Cousin Brother kept nagging me over the phone, saying I should definitely get good grades since I might want to change my major later.

And my Aunt, who couldn’t come to Korea due to family matters, threatened me saying ‘If you’re going to live like that, come here right now.’…

If I had lived in High School like I did in middle school, I probably would have been dragged abroad by my Hyung long ago…

So when I entered High School, I moved out of the Apartment I was living in, moved into a small Studio Apartment, and cleanly cut ties with my wandering ways.

After that, I really only studied, and eventually got accepted into the University and department I wanted.

“This is my past. The end.”

Although, even at the university I entered, I briefly wandered because I felt like I had chosen the wrong major.

‘Good thing I came to my senses quickly.’

And my Colleagues who heard about my awesome turbulent period…

“That’s awesome. A model student’s surprising past.”

“…Older Brother, really stop reading manga.”

“As expected, Teacher’s guts weren’t just ordinary guts.”

“…That’s right. Now I… understand everything.”

What did you say.

It could have been an atmosphere that might have become heavy with dark past stories, but everyone skillfully transformed it into laughter like the mature adults they were.

Moreover, perhaps because everyone had refreshingly said things they couldn’t say until now, it strangely seemed like we had become closer.

‘It feels like I’ve made friends, I guess…’

I hadn’t even breathed a word about family matters to friends I thought I was quite close with, so this is really strange.

And here I am saying all this to my workplace colleagues.

‘But… now that I’ve let it out, it feels refreshing too.’

Even while speaking, I thought I might regret it all after it was over, but I didn’t feel that way at all.

After that, we enjoyed chatting about all sorts of stories.

Without drinking a single drop of alcohol, I laughed so hard my shoulders shook for the first time in a long while.

Then suddenly, I had this thought.

‘What exactly was the name of the company my parents worked at?’

I can only remember that it was some place that did bio-related research.

Looking back, there were quite a few suspicious aspects after the accident… It was strange how that employee who was supposedly my parents’ colleague suddenly disappeared like that too.

“Teacher Hwiyeon, please have some more of this!”

…Well, that’s not important now anyway. I quickly took the bowl containing the sundae that Park I-deun had ordered as a service and forgot about it.

That was enough reminiscing about the past.

***

On the way home after finishing the company dinner.

Coming out of the gamjatang restaurant, I picked up Nabi.

Nabi waved toward the back while being held in my arms.

“Who are you greeting?”

The evening air outside feels refreshing against my skin in this excited atmosphere, calming my heart.

‘I laughed so much I forgot I was tired.’

Is this why everyone wants to have general meetings and company dinners?

“A friend I met at the playroom!”

“What did you play together?”

Since Nabi didn’t want to eat, I didn’t force her to.

‘When I said I’d feed her separately at home, everyone seemed to understand.’

When we get home, I should open some snacks for her.

“We talked about interesting things. About what our favorite fairy tale books are!”

“Oh… Fairy tale books? I know Nabi’s favorite fairy tale book. It’s ‘Little Ghost Jack,’ right?”

“Right! I like it because lots of my friends appear in it! Hehe~”

“Then, what did your friend say their favorite book was?”

The fact that they were talking about fairy tale books among themselves was cute.

Sometimes Nabi has cute sides too…

“In Search of My Lost Eyes!”

“Cough.”

…Why, of all things, does the fairy tale book title have to be like that?

“It’s about waking up in the morning and finding your eyes are gone, so you go on an adventure to find your lost eyes! It’s just like me! Right?”

“…”

“We’re going to go look for them too, right? Right?”

“…”

“Right.”

“That’s right….”

This doesn’t seem like something I can just pretend not to know and pass by.

‘Let me rest a bit…. Please.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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